Each week of this Lenten season, we are focusing on ways that we can practice a counter-cultural theology that emphasizes the beauty and grace of the reality of life-right-now, rather than waiting with increasing judgment to reach some vision of a perfected existence. Far too often, when life does not go as planned or as hoped, we feel shame. We think we should have been able to make it happen. Or maybe we desperately search for where to point the finger of blame for suffering in the world. It is easier to try to find a reason than to sit with the pain and live authentically in these imperfect times in-between Creation and Heaven. So we blame, and we keep trying harder and harder. Our ladder-climbing efforts sometimes end up taking us down a rung or two as things don’t work out just right. And so let us continue to turn ladders into gardens, nurturing our souls and embracing our holy, “good enough,” lives.

Join us on this journey! It’s not too late!

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As we continue our “Good Enough” sermon series, and meditate on what it means to release oppressive expectations about perfection in our lives and in our faith, this week we turn to a harmful idea that the prescription for our fear of failure is to simply work harder. As the book Good Enough reminds us, “We might feel we are climbing an ‘endless staircase’ of achievement, for high grades or success…[in] caregiving, work, or social pressure.” This Lent, we are taking some time to stop climbing ladders and staircases, to tend our souls slowly and lovingly, tilling the soil and fertilizer, and embracing our holy, “good enough,” lives. We look at one of Jesus’ many healing stories with the Samaritan woman at the well, where He sees an invisible need and crosses barriers to meet it.

We affirm that God’s love and grace come without price and making ourselves sick with overwork is not the answer to what ails us. And yet, God does call us to work together to alleviate the suffering of others. Why? Not so we can buy the golden ticket to eternal life, but so that all might know a heaven of help right here on earth.

Join us in this restorative and transformative conversation! AND DON’T FORGET TO JOIN US IN THE BOOK STUDIES OF GOOD ENOUGH ON MONDAYS 3/20 (in person) AND 3/27 (on zoom) both at 7 PM.

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This week in our sermon series, we build on our theme of “Good Enough” and consider the ways that we grasp for control over everything in our lives, and the ways that it makes us miserable because we were not meant to be God. We were meant to live lives of open-handed grace. How does Jesus model this for us as a fellow human being, and where in our lives can we unclench and let go? And see what God can do? Maybe it won’t be what we planned, but it will actually be good enough. And so will we.

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We continue our Lenten Sermon Series “Good Enough”, begun on Ash Wednesday this past week. This series is based upon the newly released book by the author Kate Bowler of the same name, with 40 devotions helping to put language to humanity’s struggle that life is not as it should be, but still must be lived faithfully. Part of being human is wrestling with all of the things that are broken in our world and that cannot be fixed, yet also tending to the things that we can do something about. We are only human, but also made in the image of God. This Lent, can we let ‘good enough’ be good enough? 

THIS WEEK: we find ourselves hungry for many things that we believe will bring us satisfaction. The devil lays a bet that Jesus will jump at the chance for glory, fame, and the quick fix. Who wouldn’t? But Jesus keeps up the pithy one-liners long enough that the Tempter just has to slink away. What are the temptations that catch your ear, singing out promises that your life should be more special than it is? What if ordinary life is already holy–as is?

Link to readable sermon PDF

This Ash Wednesday is the beginning of Lent and also the beginning of a new Lenten sermon series called “Good Enough”. This series is based upon the newly released book by the author Kate Bowler of the same name, with 40 devotions helping to put language to humanity’s struggle that life is not as it should be, but still must be lived faithfully. Part of being human is wrestling with all of the things that are broken in our world and that cannot be fixed, yet also tending to the things that we can do something about. We are only human, but also made in the image of God. This Lent, can we let ‘good enough’ be good enough?

Ash Wednesday kicks off this series by considering our culture’s (and our religion’s) drive towards perfection, and asks us to genuinely consider fasting from that; giving that up as a way to grow closer to God and to what God truly wants for us. Join us in this journey in the coming weeks.

Link to readable PDF